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You’ve begun to answer the call: the call as mamas to start telling the truth, that we’re all a mess and just giving it our best shot day by day.  Our first guest post is by a good friend, WordGirl.  I’ve known her in varying degrees of intimacy over the last 10 years and I can testify that she’s a mama you’d want know, sculpting her own mold for motherhood and making way a path for her three unique daughters. To see the original post and invitation to start talking, go here.

I’m as much of a perfectionist – maybe more – than the next mom.  As the first born female in my family, I was pretty much hard wired for perfectionism.  I’ve always wanted to please people and I’ve historically been unwilling to even try things that might lead to failure.  (Because if I don’t try, I can’t fail, right?!)  Motherhood has taught me many lessons, but perhaps the most lasting one will be that not only can I not attain perfection, it’s not even my goal.  Because ultimately, aiming for perfection in my own life will send the message that my daughters should, too.

I’ll never forget the phone call that was the first crack in my vision of who I should be as a mother.  I was standing in my dirty kitchen (who decided a black & white kitchen floor would be a good idea?), an infant in my arms, a two year old and four year old playing in the background, the sink piled high with dishes, the phone cradled between my ear and shoulder as I leaned against the countertop, my back to the mess that awaited my attention.  I was tired, drained, a tad overwhelmed.

On the phone was an older, wiser mom, whose four children were mostly grown.  We didn’t talk often.  She had called just to see how we were doing and to check in on me.  When she asked how things were going with baby girl number three, I replied weepily, “Well, it’s OK.  Kate’s sleeping pretty well and the bigger girls are great at playing together while I nurse her.  But I’m constantly telling Bekah – or Anna – or both – to wait while I do something else.  It’s hard.  I can’t meet all of their needs.”  And this voice of Godly wisdom said, “Honey, if you could meet all of their needs, they wouldn’t need Jesus.”

And I felt a whisper of release, a glimmer of hope, the inkling of an idea that would take a long time to germinate and take root in my soul:  I wasn’t failing my children with my imperfections, I was showing them that none of us can do it on our own.

If my three daughters never see me fail, if they never see cracks in the mask of the perfect mom, if they never see me cry over a mistake I’ve made and then get up and dust myself off, how will they feel when they inevitably fail?  If my family never sits down to less than a three course, organic, homemade meal, how will they feel the first time they feed their own children chicken nuggets and French fries?  If our home is never less than sparklingly clean, how will they feel when the laundry piles up as they sit on the sofa and nurse their newborn baby?  If their mother stays entirely within her comfort zone and never falls down from trying to do something important, will they be willing to stretch and reach towards their dreams?

So I try to pick my battles as a mom.  Some things are more important to me than others.  I like cooking new, yummy foods.  I don’t care if my shelves get dusty between cleanings.  I want our living room clutter-free, but it doesn’t bother me if my girls’ bedrooms are scattered with toys.  I try to let my daughters see me work on things that are important to me (like writing) and I try to let them see the discouragement I feel alongside the accomplishment.  Because they will surely experience both in their own lives.

Instead of seeing Being A Perfect Mom as my goal, I see my goal as being a mom who uses the gifts that she has to bless others.  By extension, I want to help my daughters find and use their gifts.  I like these goals because they do not require that we compare ourselves to others.  They only require that we do our best, that we seek to understand who God made each of us to be and that we rest in both the gifts and the limitations we each have.

I’m not sure what other moms think of me.  Maybe they see my failures – maybe they see my successes.  What I hope and pray is that they see BOTH.  Because I’m not a perfect mom by any standard.  I’m just a mom who is desperately trying to be the best mom I can to the wonderful daughters I have.

How did this conversation start? Go back to the beginning and join in.  If you have a story, essay, letter, rambling of the heart, serious or funny, email me at aimee@punctuate.net.  Welcome to the Imperfect Mamas Club.

Most of us mamas wake up with one pressing goal when we rise from our still warm beds.  No, it’s not getting the kids off to school on time, starting the laundry, or spending time with God . Our real goal is to keep it together, or atleast make sure we look like it to outside world.

We make sure our kid’s hair gets combed flat and the morning breakfast wiped from his face (because “what will the teacher think of me if my son arrives like that?”). We threaten and cajole our kids to behave in the grocery store in order to earn the approving glances and “Isn’t she so cute?” comments from the cashier.  We fix our hair, change out of the comfortable clothes so that we can tell ourselves we still fit into the pre-mom crowd that isn’t getting spit up on all day.  When friends come over, we yell at our kids to start cleaning up, our stress level rising with every toy and dirty sock we pick up, so that we can begin the charade of “this is how my house is all the time”.

An accomplice to this energy draining, confidence deflating goal is the pressing belief that there really are moms out there that aren’t just pretending, they really are the good moms, the perfect moms.  And we’re in another category, the always-trying-but-never-quite-making-the-cut club.

We’re completely convinced that every mom who’s running around to soccer, ballet, and girl scouts can deal better than we can.  As a brand new mom, we’re sure that no other mom has ever spent the day crying, wondering how in the world she’ll make it until 5pm.  Our naptime and late night blog runs reveal in black and white what we already knew-there are plenty of moms that can effortlessly train character into their 18 months old while leading a creative art project, cooking an organic dinner, and still seducing their husband as soon as the kids get the last lullaby.

When I see the mom that appears to have gotten dressed with her own personal stylist and kids who are obviously more gifted than mine, I don’t feel an admiration and a yearning to be that woman’s friend, I only feel like crap.

I do remember a few times in early motherhood when I didn’t feel like the loser mom.  A had one friend who invited me over a lot when our kids were very young and everytime I saw her laundry spilling over chairs and piled in the bathtub I felt my expectations(on myself) lighten momentarily.  One time, my mentor brought her family over and we babysat for them.  Her kids misbehaved. In my head, since we lived far apart, I had sketched her clearly as “all that I wasn’t”. When I saw one son teasing and bullying the other son, she didn’t lose merit as a mother or mentor in my eyes.  Instead I felt a little chip in The Perfect Mother, allowing a tiny room for grace. Or the day I stood in the yard with another Mama I admired  (I’d always wondered how she had brought about obedience, respect, and order in her 4 sons) and she said playfully with a quick reveal under her layers, “Some days I wish I drank.”  Because until then I would have never believed she was anything but perfectly content and skilled 24 hours a day.  Her comment didn’t lessen my opinion, it made her more fully 3 dimensional.  If only those moments had been more frequent, it wouldn’t have taken me almost 10 years to figure out I was doing okay.

I’m tired of the pressure I put on myself to put up the appearance of holding it together, and I’m bound to fail at it, again and again.  So how about a new scenario?

A mom sees me with my miraculously well-groomed four children tagging behind me as she struggles with her first child and she says,

“I don’t know how you do it.”

I stop turn to her and say, “Some days I do it well, but some days(and weeks) are hard all day long.   I couldn’t do it without the Lord’s help.  Parenting is hard, you’re doing a great job.”

Hey, this is something I can’t fail at-being honest.

Let’s stop trying to earn admission into the Secret Society of Mothers who Never Make Mistakes.  I’m starting the not-so-secret, Imperfect Mamas Club.  If you’re a mom, you’re already a member-no trying involved.

Let’s start telling our stories.  I’m not inviting us to a pity party.  I love my kids and in moments of clarity I’m awe-struck by the privilege I have to be with my kids every day and to be such a big influence on their vulnerable hearts. But it’s time for mothers to start helping other moms redefine “good mom”, normal mom, and happy mom.

This isn’t a chance to list off all of the difficult things about your job in order to get sympathy and to feel worse and even more determined that you should have never been a mom.  It’s a chance to share the good and the bad, in order give balm to the hurt, to feel less alone, to accept the hard and savor the great.

I’m going to be exploring these thoughts for a little while here at Abundant Life and I’d love your voice to join mine.  If you have a story, essay, letter, rambling from your heart either serious or funny, email me at aimee@punctuate.net

The six of us went to bed last night with similar and yet different hopes.  The children hoped for the promised snow, a world of white peering in at them at daybreak.  (And yes they did get up at daybreak just to make sure the longed for snow wouldn’t get lonely).  I crossed my fingers for snow, but with conditions. Yes to snow if it was thick, icy, and early enough in the morning to cancel Mr. Darcy’s day at work. No to snow if it meant piles of wet clothes, the roads clear enough to traverse, and the expectation that I would actually go out into the cold.  That’s Mr Darcy’s job, it’s my responsibility to take pictures from the doorway (or hand the camera to the husband) and make hot chocolate.

The early risers found a very non-ivory landscape when they awoke and they wore the snow’s betrayal like capes across their shoulders.  As Mr. Darcy left for work, I cut my losses since the snow was obviously not going to adhere to my conditions.

And then the snow slowly, steadily arrived like a late guest to a birthday party.

The kids greeted the tardy arrival with forgiveness and little minds made big plans.

And it rained down miniature marshmallows and the world turned white and the kids entered the enchanted land for a little while.

Mama look, my first snowball!

My first snow angel, Mama!

And the wet clothes piled up and the hot chocolate got made.

Cheesy toast just like my mom used to make

And after I got past the cold, I found  myself admiring:

the layers of color against a fresh backdrop

the transformation of simple things we see every day

the joy the kids found in the very moderate amount of snow that visited them, even their mini-snowman satisfied their dreams from the night before

Not the snow day I had planned, but magical in it’s own way for a short period of time.

“Every step in the dark turns out, in the end, to have been on course after all.”

John Tarrant

These are the words I first read as I started into one of my Christmas presents, The Gift of An Ordinary Day by Katrina Kenison.

I am in limbo, or atleast it feels like it as the last push and glitter of the holidays is swept aside and what we call this new year is shoving in, whether it’s invited or not.   I’d like put on hold this new beginning until-until the air warms up and the sun brings the evenings back again, until I have a clear inspiration and vision for the second half of our school year, until I’ve had several days to lay under the covers blissfully lost in a book, until I’ve figured out how to savor and be productive at the same time.

I’m in the middle.  Last year we had a really great beginning, Baby Sparkles.  We also had a loss that I’m still losing every day of every week, my beautiful Granny left us this last year.  We kissed goodbye the first half of Mookie’s life with us at home.  I can click through pictures of Drummer boy over the past year and see his round baby cheeks disappearing a little more in each frame. Jellybean pounced on her fear and said hello to confidence. In the big picture, there are only a handful of really great beginnings and endings and the rest is the in between.

I’m trying to figure out how to jump start my middle.

Until then, I’m making brownies and hoping for a snow day, party pants included.

We were waiting for our world to change forever.

A year later, she’s here, bringing us abundant life every day.

We’ve been living day to day, too busy, the chores piling high, and other things, New Years Eve as an example, just sneaking up with a firecracker pop.  As the last hours of the year began to dwindle, I had no greater aspirations than a snuggled spot on the couch with Mr. Darcy and my sister nearby, with a half-hearted thought toward the laundry currently blocking my side of the bed.

But then we do have 9 year old.  She had a completely different goal and it boiled down to a strong determination to see the ball drop for the first time.

So after her siblings fell unsuspectingly asleep and the clock marched on to 10:30, and she’d already been reading in bed with her booklight, we finally turned her loose in the living room.

If it weren’t for the 9 year old, the old people in the house would have been in bed.  Instead, out came a few snacks and bottle of dusty champagne(and eggnog for the under-aged party girl).  And although I did fold the laundry, I first put on what will from tonight and forever more be dubbed my “party pants”.

The 9 year old saw the ball drop, made some cards for her siblings and cousin(with no intention at all to cause envy, she included the message, “I stayed up until midnight!”), and kept the adults from letting the new year slip by unacknowledged.

Happy New Year, come back again soon.

Bring your party pants if you’ve got’em.

As I take another day to recover from the busy weeks of Christmas before I find words again…let me present:

Our house tonight.

Can you guess what Mr. Darcy got for Christmas?

Although I’ve shared few words here over the past busy week, my heart and mind have been working overtime.

It’s 1am, time to tuck in before 6 feet and 3 anxious bodies come running.

Quiet and peace have arrived, the waiting is almost over.